Just days after Little League International denounced Goffstown manager Jeff O'Connell's decision not to play his last substitute in the New England Regional semifinals last Friday in Bristol, Conn.,...

President Donald Trump announced the disbanding of two high-profile business advisory councils on Wednesday after several chief executives quit in protest over his remarks blaming weekend violence in...

Nashua startup attracts $30 million in venture capital

By DAVE SOLOMONNew Hampshire Union LeaderJanuary 29. 2013 6:50PMNASHUA - A high-tech startup based in Nashua on Tuesday announced another $30 million in venture capital funding, in addition to $12 million invested in the company in April.

DataGravity, a company whose avowed mission is to turn data into information, said it will use the investment to advance its product development and support a go-to-market strategy.

The company was founded by CEO Paula Long of Amherst and President John Joseph of Bolton, Mass. Long and Joseph were executives with EqualLogic, a data storage company acquired by Dell in 2008 for $1.4 billion.

The initial $12 million in capital came from investors Charles River Ventures of Boston and General Catalyst of Cambridge, Mass., both of whom provided more money for this $30 million round of funding, led by Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Peter Levine, a partner in Andreessen Horowitz, will join DataGravity's board of directors.

The company has 30 employees at its 12,000-square-foot location in Nashua, housing both lab and office space. "It's larger than we need right now," Long said, "but we're going to grow into it." She said the expansion will occur as the company starts to bring its product to market later this year and in 2014.

"We were well-capitalized to develop and build the product and to start the first phase of the company," she said. "This (additional $30 million) gives us the fuel to go further. We're going to grow to 45 to 50 employees by the end of the year."

The initial hiring will be for engineers, followed by sales and marketing personnel, she said.

The company has been secretive about its product prior to the marketing launch.

"We're in stealth mode right now," Long said. "But in layman's terms, we're unlocking information that's hidden in data. Next year, when we come out and start talking more specifically about what we're doing, this will all become very clear."

New board member Levine hinted at what might be coming in a blog he posted Tuesday.

"Unlocking the next generation of storage requires looking at stored data not as a dumb repository of expensive bits, but as the foundation for usable, intelligent information," he wrote. "We've overlooked the data as the true asset to our business and we store it away without giving any thought to what it's saying about our business, our customers and our users. The DataGravity team will take what is considered an idle operating expense and convert it to near-instant business value."